Pashinyan turning Armenia into 'bargaining chip', MP says

Opposition Pativ Unem faction MP Tigran Abrahamyan has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government of weakening the Armenian army, warning that such policies threaten the country’s sovereignty.

His remarks followed the Defense Ministry’s proposal to reduce the length of mandatory military service from two years to one and a half.

“The Pashinyan government is dismantling the army under the false premise that there will be no war because Baku and Ankara have provided such assurances,” Abrahamyan wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

According to him, “Pashinyan’s peace” is nothing more than a façade — a collection of hollow promises, unreliable assurances and deception.

“In any negotiation or international dialogue, the only true guarantee for protecting national interests, resisting blackmail and achieving peace is the capacity to defend one’s own security,” Abrahamyan stressed.

He argued that by downsizing the military, failing to ensure its combat readiness and reducing the armed forces to a mere bureaucracy, Pashinyan’s government is turning Armenia into a “bargaining chip”, leaving the country’s future to be decided by others.